Christian Kessler is a historian, professor at L'Athénée Français and at Musashi University in Tokyo. Latest book published:
Ryuji Nagatsuka, I was a kamikaze, Presentation and notes by Christian Kessler,
(Perrin/Tempus).
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In Japan, the announcement widely commented on in all media of the loss of third place in the world economy to the benefit of Germany, sounds like an alarm signal, notes the major Japanese economic daily
Nikkei
in an editorial published on Saturday February 9.
Third economic power since 2010, then demoted by China, Japan is now overtaken by Germany in the international rankings, while the latter's economy has itself been suffering for months.
Certainly, the IMF had reported this state of affairs as early as October 2023, with Japanese nominal GDP amounting to around 4,200 billion dollars, compared to around 4,400 for Germany.
No surprise then.
Which does not prevent Japan, which had already experienced very badly when its powerful neighbor China passed it in front of it in 2010, saw this new regression as an affront, at the height of the 1960s when it had overtaken the same Germany which since the The 19th century had always been the model for him to imitate and surpass.
Everyone remembers the famous book by journalist Robert Guillain, world correspondent in Japan, entitled
Japan Third Great,
- behind the United States and the USSR - published in 1969, a title which had alerted more than one.
And now, today, Germany overtakes Japan which finds itself in fourth place in the international rankings and will soon slip to fifth, the time for India to overtake it in turn.
It is a safe bet that this shock wave will have repercussions in the future, as symbolism plays a crucial role here.
If the Japanese economy has been impacted by the weakness of the yen and at the same time German GDP has been boosted by inflation, these are nevertheless fundamental factors which contribute to this downgrading of the archipelago.
Also read: When the Oppenheimer film awakens the Japanese trauma of the atomic bomb
Let's go back.
In August 1945, atomized, totally destroyed, Japan was no longer a recognized power.
He is predicted to have a dark future where he will no longer be able to play in the big leagues.
Occupied by the Americans who impose their pacifist constitution on him, he no longer has a say.
But miraculously, the Korean War (1950-1953) where it played the role of supplier and logistical rear base for the American army, allowed it to revive its economy.
Little by little, then more and more quickly, the country will experience a series of successive economic booms unprecedented in history which will allow it from the 1960s to become the “third big” ahead of Germany.
The culmination of this return to the concert of Nations was the 1964 Olympic Games, which allowed Japan to show the whole world its striking transformation.
At the beginning of the 1980s, it succeeded in aligning itself with the standard of living of the most developed countries.
Once past the milestone of the major ecological crises illustrated by particularly polluting companies and an out-of-control megalopolis of Tokyo, it will pull itself together to become a sort of model as the United States had previously been: business model Japanese and its productive system, model of its society based on the strong integration of social norms by everyone, model of a safe country... Some then promise it to become the leading economic power in the world in the 21st century, nothing less than that!
Japan, which draws its strength from exports, is today losing ground in the face of a slowing but aggressive Chinese export market, as clearly indicated by the fact that China has become the leading car exporter in 2023.
Christian Kessler
But when you're at the top of the class you tend to let yourself go.
Japan is beginning to live beyond its means to the point of becoming intoxicated with foreign acquisitions, some more symbolic than others.
The frenzied speculation on land and construction in the capital, the dubious money of the underworld, the “Plaza Accords” of 1985 which revalued the yen (
endaka
), all of this exploded in the face of a paralyzed Japan.
At the beginning of the 1990s, things began to fall apart.
The speculative bubble causes income stagnation even though growth is no longer there.
Faced with the aging of its population, it remains passive.
For Japan it is now “two lost decades”.
While the country had been at the forefront of technology, it missed the big turning point in the internet and communication.
In Asia, he takes a dim view of the rise of his long-time rivals, China, but also South Korea, without however reacting.
The wave of Anglo-Saxon globalization left him on the sidelines, who had a network of large companies that covered the entire world.
A slow withdrawal into itself begins, while the world is globalizing.
Certainly, it is seeking to use “soft power” to pull itself together and become the second largest exporter of cultural goods behind the United States.
From 2000 the government promoted the image of a "Cool Japan" in the face of criticism coming mainly from China and Korea, for example on its role during the "fifteen years" war (1931-1945) and its refusal to clearly recognize the abuses of the imperial army throughout Asia.
But in the area of “soft power” too, Korea and China are becoming serious competitors for him.
Like Germany, Japan, which draws its strength from exports, is today losing ground in the face of a slowing but aggressive Chinese export market, as is clearly indicated by the fact that China has become the leading car exporter in 2023. Domestic consumption, sluggish, is undermined by inflation and the fall of the Yen.
The crisis that the country is going through, in almost all areas (academic, demographic, technical, economic, judicial, etc.) responds to a ruling class incapable of showing a path to the future, without imagination, without great decision-making capacity and of which we have the impression that he leaves the archipelago like a plane without a pilot on board!
An insolent high bureaucracy, in cahoots with the lobbies, prefers the status quo to any change and blocks it at all costs.
In the school system as in society, politics is hardly discussed and remains overwhelmingly a taboo, making Japan the champion of non-contestation, a one-party democracy.
Originality and creativity always fall short of conformism and obedience.
Like other countries, Japan is experiencing a demographic winter, not to say an ice age, but at an accelerated pace.
A worrying labor shortage in a country fiercely opposed to immigration reserved for temporary workers alone, poses a fundamental problem in a country where supposed racial homogeneity remains significant.
We prefer to rely on robotics, on the Japanese robot in short, rather than on the arrival of foreign workers on its soil.
Japan risks once again closing in on itself.
Christian Kessler
Of course, Japan can still count on a few major sectors, particularly in tech, robotics, automobiles, space, services, etc.
Nothing is lost therefore.
But if its sclerotic elites do not change their attitude, if the changes in education, soon in the constitution, continue along the path of neo-conservatism dear to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – the famous Torimodosu
ideology
, which consists of returning to a Japan with full autonomy, in other words with all its traditional values, and therefore finally rid of the foreign paradigm imposed in 1945 - Japan risks once again closing in on itself.
Weakness in the study of foreign languages where Japan places far behind other industrial countries, namely 87th out of 113 countries, a certain decline in fundamental research which now places it in 13th place behind Iran, far behind from its 4th place in the 1990s due to its innovation in electronics or semiconductors, all this contributes to its downgrading A figure to finish: barely 23% of parents want their children to do study courses at the stranger!
And for good reason.
Their return to the Japanese working world hardly gives them any advantage, quite the contrary.